Male Politicians Need To Shut Up About Rape

Women are fed up with male politicians on both sides of the
Atlantic diminishing this serious crime

Rape is having a moment. And not in a good way. Women who assumed
that basic goals of equality were set in stone have been badly
shocked over the past few days. On both sides of the Atlantic,
from the Left and the Right, male politicians and two-bit “public
figures” have made common cause on rape. Not to condemn it, or to
pledge tougher action in policing it; but to minimize and dismiss
it as a crime.

It started with Julian
Assange, and the repellent decision of Ecuador to grant him
“political asylum”. Assange is not accused of any political
crime. He is accused under Swedish law of raping one woman and
sexually molesting another. In granting asylum, Ecuador spat on
the human rights record of Sweden, a liberal, even Left-wing,
European democracy. As the Twitterati and army of internet
Assange groupies began their celebrations, the belittling of the
accusations began. What had allegedly happened was “not rape”,
they argued. This, even though it is clear that one woman claims
she was asleep and unconscious when, she alleges, Assange raped
her. An unconscious person cannot give consent. The allegation
that the woman had consented to safe sex with a condom but not to
unsafe sex without one was rubbished; her right to withhold
consent for possible pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases
was apparently non-existent.

Assange has had his day in the English courts – several days, in
fact. And more than once, our courts have made it clear sex
without consent constitutes an offense of rape under English law.

As Assange gave a rambling speech on Sunday from the balcony of
the Ecuadorean embassy, he painted himself as a martyr, sang the
praises of the repressive regime in Ecuador, and totally ignored
the two women, and the allegation of rape. The adoring crowd of
Left-wingers on the ground clapped and cheered. Some of them
sported Messiah-like photos of Assange, captioned “The
Messenger”. Nobody called out: “What about the women?”

That was bad enough. Feminists of the Right and Left, myself
included, lined up to condemn both Assange and the zealots that
supported him. Left-wing media outlets like the Guardian and the
New Statesman, whose internet pages are full of commenters
minimizing the charges, were obliged to run pieces explaining why
Assange had to submit to a Swedish court.

But then in waded George Galloway. “Not everybody needs to be
asked prior to each insertion,” he said charmingly in a video
podcast on Monday. “Some people believe that when you go to bed
with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and
then fall asleep, you’re already in the sex game with them.”
While we were mentally vomiting at the term “sex game” used by Mr
Galloway in any context, he made matters worse. “It might be
really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and
said, 'Do you mind if I do it again?’ It might be really sordid
and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape
or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning.”

Er, no. It is Galloway that is bankrupt of meaning: rape is when
a woman does not consent. Because she is, for example, asleep and
unconscious. Sexual consent is not football; you can’t buy a
season ticket.

If conservatives were smug over the discomfiture of the Left,
though, they did not have long to rejoice. At the same time, the
Republican candidate for the Missouri Senate race, Congressman
Todd Akin, was going on television to defend his pro-life
position – no abortion in the case of rape. He came up with a
cracker: “From what I understand from doctors, that’s really
rare,” Akin said. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has
ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” And if “maybe that
didn’t work, or something” then the rapist should be punished,
not the child.

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways. Akin cites purely
imaginary “doctors” – and this is a politician who sits on the
House Science and Technology committee. He states it is “really
rare” for a pregnancy to occur from rape – but more than 31,000
of them occur in the US per annum. Then we have the lovely phrase
“legitimate rape”. As opposed to “soft rape”, “diet rape”,
“had-it-coming rape”? Here Akin makes Galloway’s point; that
there is true rape and something less, where the woman is to
blame even if she withheld consent – perhaps she’d agreed to
sleep with the man before under different conditions, as in the
Assange accusations. And lastly, we have the medieval contention
that the “female body” can “shut that whole thing down”. Pshaw,
condoms, why insist on them?

Yesterday, Mike Huckabee, former Republican governor of Arkansas,
dug the ditch deeper, saying “extraordinary things” have been
done by those born from “forcible” rapes. He once ran for
president, and was taken seriously.

And just when women were reeling from the dies horribilis on
Monday, it was capped by Craig Murray, former Lib Dem (though
luckily for Nick Clegg, he left the party) and self-described
“human rights activist” going on Newsnight, again to support
Assange. He attempted to discredit the two women who have brought
the rape and sexual molestation allegations, but he also named
one of them. If the alleged offence had been committed in the UK,
it would be illegal to name the complainant. Murray was once a
British ambassador.

Why do male politicians get this so wrong? Unfortunately, the
answer is simple: because they believe what they are saying.
Galloway, Akin and Murray represent the tip of an iceberg of
resentment and base sexism.

Before his merciful defection to Ukip, Roger Helmer MEP shamed
the Conservative Party when he distinguished on his blog in May
2011 between “classic stranger rape” and “date rape”, where a
boyfriend is “unable to restrain himself” when his lover gets
“cold feet and says stop!” He wrote: “Most right-thinking people
would expect a much lighter sentence in the second case. Rape is
always wrong, but not always equally culpable.”

Helmer added that, in this case, “the victim surely shares a part
of the responsibility, if only for establishing reasonable
expectations in her boyfriend’s mind”.

What a loathsome thing, and by a then-member of my own party. I
spoke out to condemn it; the party distanced itself, as the
Republican Party is now doing from Akin. But we did not withdraw
the whip, as we undoubtedly should have done.

A year on from Helmer’s remarks, the Justice Department has no
women in the most senior roles; it stumbled both on trying to
grant anonymity to men accused of rape, a Lib Dem idea, and in
Ken Clarke’s own unfortunate comments about rape. I hope (and
expect) that the Prime Minister will use the opportunity of the
reshuffle to promote some of the talented female lawyers on his
benches into the department that governs rape, sexual trafficking
and other crimes against women. Women are fed up with male
politicians diminishing, dismissing and demeaning the horrific
crime of rape.

Some politicians know it, too. It’s no wonder Mitt
Romney and the Republican Party were going all-out to
persuade Todd Akin to withdraw from the ballot yesterday. Not
only is the Senate seat winnable, but Missouri is a must-win
state. With Akin, they would be in real trouble with women
voters. “Akin is right,” one tweet said, “the female body does
have ways to 'shut that whole thing down’. Walk to the voting
booth and vote for Claire
McCaskill [Akin’s opponent].”

All too often, the media pretends that feminism’s work is done.
This week shows us what so many male politicians really think
about consent, and sex, and the rights of a woman to withhold it,
or attach conditions to it. There is a long way to go.